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I Finally Get to the Beach
"In a cabin in the woods, in the middle of the malaria capital of Thailand, and I've already been bitten 20 times by mosquitoes. The big, black and white striped ones which, I seem to remember, are the ones which bear malaria, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, ebola, cancer and bad acne. I believe they are actually required to wear a tiny warning from the surgeon general. Huge black butterflies are everywhere. When I get back to Bangkok, I'm going to start a goth band." So reads my one meager journal entry from my visit to Koh Samet, a small island close to Bangkok yet far away from everything. I've been back for a few days and I'm not wracked with fever and delirium so I guess I survived. Though that would be no thanks to the Thai guides on the island who were friendly and helpful but totally oblivious to things which sane people might call danger. I spent most of my four days at Koh Samet wandering around the beaches, swimming, drinking beer and snooping in tide pools for critters. To get there I took a bus from Bangkok, rode four hours to the coastal town of Banphe and hopped in a boat for a half hour ride to the island. It is the closest island to Bangkok so it's a pretty popular vacation spot for the weekend. For that reason I didn't go on the weekend and got to enjoy the island in relative solitude.
I'm embarrassed to say that as I prepared to board this boat to the island, the theme to Gilligan's Island popped into my head. Koh Samet is really an ideal spot in a number of ways. It's proximity to Bangkok is one. This could make it over-crowded except for the fact that several years ago the Thai government made the island a national park and put a cap on development there. So there are no luxury hotels to be had and if you want to stay, the best you can do is a bungalow with an air conditioner and electricity that only comes on after dark. Food and water is shipped to the island from the coast, so I was careful only to eat seafood. I didn't want to think about the process that a slab of beef must endure to make it from the butcher to the boat to the island to the bungalow. An FDA nightmare to be sure. Others have complained about food poisoning on Koh Samet but I managed to avoid that evil. Another reason it's so great is that the beaches are clean and the sand is some of the finest, whitest silicon you will ever have the fortune to dump out of your luggage. It's not really popular with foreigners so most of the clientele is Thai, and prices are accordingly low. Another result of this is that the folks who walk around trying to sell you stuff are fairly low-key about it and if you say no, they'll remember you and won't ask again. And there are none of the bars that you find at other islands with girls hanging out of them shouting, "Hello, Handsome! Where you go?" I always wonder how they know my nickname is "Handsome".
Snorkeling the Snorkel of Death The second full day there, I took a boat tour around the island for ten bucks. There were others that featured speed boats and licensed divers but I went the budget route, which still included fishing, snorkeling a barbecue and the shark and turtle farm. Fishing turned out to be holding a spool of line with a piece of squid on the other end and trolling while the boat drifted in the wind. One fish was caught by a Scottish girl and one blowfish was caught by me. There being no Japanese tough guys on board, we didn't risk eating the deadly blowfish and it was freed. The guides had the foresight to know we wouldn't catch anything and had brought fish for the barbecue. We motored into a small bay and dined on board. Barbecued fish, rice and vegetables, watermelon and pineapple. It was pretty great and settled our churning stomachs. Then, just like your mom tells you not to do, we went swimming. The guides passed out snorkels, masks and life jackets and let us go to it. No instruction or warnings, they just parked near a coral encrusted rock and lazed around the boat while we paddled about the lagoon. I was first to the reef and I immediately noticed two things: the water was shallow enough to stand in and, if you stood in it, you'd get sea urchin quills stuck in your feet for the rest of your vacation. I mentioned this to the Scottish girls as I figured by their sunburns they'd never snorkeled in the tropics. I hadn't either but I grew up on Jacques Cousteau. It might have been better if I were ignorant. I got pretty nervous after fifteen minutes or so and made for the boat. The water was pretty milky and it was unnerving the way a huge mushroom of brain coral would appear just inches from my flailing limbs.
Teaching Sharks to Associate People with Food
The shark farm was also a turtle farm, apparently because sharks can't bite through turtle shells. It consisted of nine pens floating in the bay, netted on the sides and open on top. You got off the boat and walked around on boards floating between the pens. On your left and right are sharks and in the middle is the board to which you must cling like a gecko, a good bit less than a meter wide. No railing. Nothing. The guides kindly supply every one with a bag of fish to be given to the sharks. This has the desirable effects of inducing a minor feeding frenzy and teaching the sharks that humans = food. Occasionally the entire structure would suddenly lurch as random waves from passing boats swept through. The guides would laugh and the tourists would laugh because they figured, if the guides were laughing, there must be no danger. However, as a Bangkok resident, I know that just because a Thai is fine with a situation does not mean that said situation is safe or even sane. Every day I see women on the back of motorcycle taxis, primly riding side-saddle and fumbling in their bag with both hands as they weave between taxis and other dangerous solid objects. I had to marvel at the glibness and depth of the "Mai Pen Rai" attitude, that if something bad happens, there's no point in crying over spilt milk. Or spilt gallons of tourist blood as the case may be. I am sure that once a week some pasty guy in loud shorts and a visor falls to the sharks, and that soon after a Thai guide smiles, shrugs his shoulders and says, "Mai Pen Rai". Which is actually part of the charm of Thailand for me. If you keep your eyes open, you'll be fine, but no one is going to lift a finger, build a railing or give advice which will make things any safer for you. In fact you have to keep your eyes open all the time, even just walking down the sidewalk (sidewalk holes, dangling electrical wires, motorbikes and elephants). I like that personally. It keeps me on my toes, my blood pumps with a little extra dose of adrenalin and I feel alive 100% of the day.
Your typical sidewalk hole. Probably made by an elephant.
Say goodbye, Mr. Gecko!
Jeffrey Studebaker has been (in no particular order) a SE Asian correspondent for a Singaporean travel magazine, a teacher, consultant and translator in Japan, a guitarist with the band, Swoon 23 in every city of the US of A, a coffee roaster in Seattle, a bike messenger in Portland, a marine fire system repairman in Seattle, an osteoporosis clinic researcher in Providence, a mental ward counsellor on the night shift in Portland, a brief success in New York, and he has now returned to the US after nearly a decade in Asia to pursue a publishing career. All material on this
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After the snorkeling we took off around the island and braved the windy side.
Some pretty nice waves made for a good roller-coaster effect. I'm not sure
if the guides thought it was a funny joke to choose this time to send all the
tourists up to the roof of the boat where the effect of the waves would be
doubled and there was nothing to hold on to. I grew up with sailboats so I
hung out near the tail over the engine, the steadiest place in the boat and
incidentally, that was where all of the guides had gathered as well. Everyone
was pretty green when they came down as we pulled into the quiet bay to visit
the shark farm.
